TY - JOUR
T1 - How Should we treat animals? A confucian reflection
AU - Fan, Ruiping
PY - 2010/2
Y1 - 2010/2
N2 - Contrary to the views proposed by modern animal rights scholars, this essay reconstructs the Confucian argument for the moral defensibility of the Confucian ritual use of animals by providing an expository analysis of classical Confucian literature. The argument is developed by focusing on the issue of the sacrificial use of animals in the Confucian tradition. While animals are treated according to certain regulations and restrictions, they are not spared from being offered as sacrifices. An essential component of Confucian virtues, reverence, requires showing deep respect to Heaven, gods, spirits, and humans but not to animals. If Confucians change the rituals in ways that spare animals, they would fail to show the depth of reverence to gods, spirits, and humans that they should. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.
AB - Contrary to the views proposed by modern animal rights scholars, this essay reconstructs the Confucian argument for the moral defensibility of the Confucian ritual use of animals by providing an expository analysis of classical Confucian literature. The argument is developed by focusing on the issue of the sacrificial use of animals in the Confucian tradition. While animals are treated according to certain regulations and restrictions, they are not spared from being offered as sacrifices. An essential component of Confucian virtues, reverence, requires showing deep respect to Heaven, gods, spirits, and humans but not to animals. If Confucians change the rituals in ways that spare animals, they would fail to show the depth of reverence to gods, spirits, and humans that they should. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.
KW - Animal use
KW - Confucianism
KW - Reverence
KW - Ritual
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=76649087966&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.scopus.com/record/pubmetrics.uri?eid=2-s2.0-76649087966&origin=recordpage
U2 - 10.1007/s11712-009-9144-7
DO - 10.1007/s11712-009-9144-7
M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal
SN - 1540-3009
VL - 9
SP - 79
EP - 96
JO - Dao
JF - Dao
IS - 1
ER -